


Desire

by aunt_zelda



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Asexual Character, Asexuality, Asexuality Spectrum, Body Horror, Bullying, Gen, Past Sexual Assault, Sex-Repulsed Jonathan Sims
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-08
Updated: 2020-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:06:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 695
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23068948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aunt_zelda/pseuds/aunt_zelda
Summary: There is horror yes, when the eyes start to appear. Extra eyes start to grow on his body. They warp his skin and allow him to see in darkness, in infa-red, to read different languages.There is horror, but there is also a small sense of guilty relief. He’s a monster. He’s a nightmare made flesh, as surely as anything shaped by Jared Hopworth’s meaty hands. But now no one is going to look at him with desire.
Comments: 18
Kudos: 160





	Desire

**Author's Note:**

> Something that's been bugging at me since I caught up on the show is how I haven't seen much exploration of the fact that Jon, who is asexual, might not feel all that great about Martin's interest in him.  
> Personally this is something I struggle with as an asexual person - being seen and desired sometimes makes me profoundly uncomfortable. Sometimes it scares me, even if the person is perfectly nice and charming, that can unsettle me as much as any TMA episode. So I wanted to explore that in a fic. 
> 
> I'm sure they'll work it out, but I wanted to write something exploring how that initial snap realization might feel for Jon.
> 
> Thanks to gwulch on twitter for the initial inspiration, and afullmargin for the nudge to finish this.

There is horror yes, when the eyes start to appear. Extra eyes start to grow on his body. They warp his skin and allow him to see in darkness, in infa-red, to read different languages. 

There is horror, but there is also a small sense of guilty relief. He’s a monster. He’s a nightmare made flesh, as surely as anything shaped by Jared Hopworth’s meaty hands. But now no one is going to look at him with desire.

Jon remembers, acutely, the first time he noticed someone looking at him with sexual intentions. He was fourteen and a girl at school had eyed him up and down and licked her lower lip. He knew other boys would be elated. But Jon had felt sick with dread. 

That was the beginning. He’d taken to wearing ill-fitting clothes, emulated their science professor in the desperate hopes of appearing undesirable, frumpy, nerdy, like a loser, anything to make it stop. 

It hadn’t stopped. An older boy shoved him against a wall between classes and growled something obscene. A younger girl trailed after him for three weeks for a scrap of his attention. His best friend asked him to the winter dance and stopped speaking to Jon after being rejected. 

Conversations shifted from school and films and books to sex, sex, sex. Who was having it, how much, with whom, how good or bad it was with this or that person. Too queasy to eat surrounded by such talk, Jon took to eating lunch alone, then in the library, sneaking sandwiches behind a stack of dusty books. 

Now Jon is an adult. Living an isolated life and working in a small office had finally granted him a modicum of peace in regards to desirability. He still notices the odd glance on the underground, a lingering look in cafes, but it’s less and less often. The more frantic he becomes due to the Eye’s influence, the more people avoid looking at him, the more the looks of desire twist to those of pity, fear, or disgust. 

Jon prefers that. He would rather nobody look at him at all some days, but lack of desire is all that he wants. 

It’s easier to be around people who have no interest in him like that, no potential for it. Melanie and Tim’s hatred of all that he stands for now, Daisy and Basira’s devotion to each other, Georgie’s kind but distant fondness … it all feels so much better to Jon. Safer. 

He misses Martin’s affection entirely. Jon wrote the man off as an overeager recruit, then a suspicious spy, then a victim in over his head. The affection surprises him, startles him, and baffles him. What is Jon to do? Surely Martin knows, surely someone has told him by now, that Jon doesn’t ... just doesn’t?

When the eyes start to appear Jon thinks that will take care of the problem of Martin. Whatever lingering feelings Martin had for him before will surely quell in the face of Jon’s monstrosity. Besides which, the end of the world has arrived, and that’s going to occupy too much of their time for thoughts of interpersonal intimacy. 

Martin spots the extra eyes. He doesn’t flinch, he doesn’t sicken, he doesn’t scream. Martin’s face flushes and his own eyes go dark. 

Jon gets a taste of far too much intimate information courtesy of the Beholding. Martin watching an American television show and becoming aroused by the monster boyfriend of the protagonist. Martin seeking out fringe films about shocking romantic entanglements between men and monsters. Martin giggling and blushing over the latest supernatural erotica being passed around the assistants when all of these things were theoretical and silly statements none of them believed in yet. Martin’s tumblr account before the content purge, featuring men entwined with tentacles and beastly creatures. 

The hot and slick and insistent urges pulse through Jon’s mind. He shudders and recoils from the sensations but there’s no escaping it now. 

“Jon? Are you ok?”

When Jon looks up again, Martin’s eyes are piercing into him. They bore through his skin like Jane Prentiss’ worms. 

The specific horror of desire surges back into Jon’s life.


End file.
